Bernie Sanders’ insurgent presidential bid did not mark the moment when the Democratic Party moved left, contends Graham Vyse at The New Republic. “It was merely when the establishment Democrats realized it had moved,” in a shift that some observers actually predicted years earlier. Now Sen. Elizabeth Warren is primed to become the party’s “new, progressive leader,” having declared that she and fellow hard-leftists “are the heart and soul of today’s Democratic Party.” Pollsters confirm that she “represents the mainstream of Democratic opinion” and that it will be “very difficult for a Democrat to win the nomination . . . on anything but the Warren platform.” But the question remains: “How would Elizabeth Warren play in Ohio?”

From the right: Only One Hero in Sordid Weinstein Saga

Ronan Farrow’s exposé in The New Yorker of Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual abuse and assaults “seems to clinch the case against a major figure in the world of entertainment, media, and politics,” says Lee Smith at The Weekly Standard. An earlier New York Times story, which may have been a calculated and “sanitized info dump,” only cited boorish behavior, curable by “a few sessions of sex addiction therapy in Europe.” But Farrow’s piece “is about a rapist.” Farrow is the only “champion in this story,” not the press institutions that for years protected Weinstein. Because Weinstein was not “going to be able to buy [Farrow] off by optioning one of his tweets for a major motion picture.” The Weinstein saga is “a story about the stench of corruption and decay arising from the grave of the institutional press.”
Foreign desk: Repeating Obama’s Mistakes With Turkey

President Trump’s foreign policy “often seems designed to spite his predecessor,” Barack Obama, notes Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. Yet when it comes to “the thorny question” of Turkey, it’s been “more ‘yes we can’ than ‘make America great again.’ ” Trump may boast of his relationship with Recep Tayip Erdogan, but the Turkish leader responds by “acting like an enemy.” In the past week, Turkey has arrested a second Turkish national working for the US diplomatic mission and jailed a Wall Street Journal reporter “for the crime of reporting on Turkey’s crackdown against its Kurdish population.” Allies “have quarrels all the time,” but “Erdogan has crossed a line.” Yet Trump “has yet to change his tone when it comes to Erdogan,” much like Obama, who “went out of his way to court the Turkish leader.”

Policy wonks: Mike Bloomberg Just Wasted $10 Million

Residents of Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, are celebrating “a much-needed win for consumer freedom” after repeal of its “wildly unpopular” soda tax, report Guy Bentley and Daniel Takash at The Washington Examiner. The Board of Commissioners vote was 15-2, “despite a $10 million ad campaign supporting the tax, funded by the nation’s wealthiest nanny, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.” Such taxes “have a disproportionate impact on the poor,” distract “from the real financial problems facing areas like Cook County” and have a profound negative impact on small-business sales. Moreover, “the potential health benefits touted by Bloomberg . . . are massively exaggerated.”

Culture critic: Real Addiction Problem Is Smartphones

Heather Wilhelm at Nation Review offers this plaintive warning to her fellow smartphone users: “We are wasting our lives.” Indeed, “American adults eat, sleep and breathe media, according to a recent eMarketer survey, consuming an average of 12 hours a day.” Other studies “have linked smartphones to decreased concentration, lower problem-solving skills, a general sense of ‘brain drain’ and depression.” Some Silicon Valley types are even pushing back against “intentionally addictive social-media apps that they compare to heroin.” Wilhelm quotes Confucius as saying, “He who conquers the smartphone is the mightiest warrior,” then adds: “OK, fine: He actually said ‘he who conquers himself.’ ” But nowadays, she asks, “isn’t that pretty much the same thing?”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann